


How strange, how sweet to find you still

by Radiolaria



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Not Beta Read, Post Time War, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is waiting for a bus, except it's not a bus, but a cabin. And he keeps noticing things. Like her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How strange, how sweet to find you still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agelessdaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agelessdaughter/gifts).



> This is a very young, yet already imprisoned River.
> 
> Title from These Foolish Things by Eric Maschwitz.

As expected, the anti-grav cabin supposed to bring him back on the platform he left the TARDIS on is late.

And the sky is darkening, from yellow to brown, clouds gathering above and wind bringing chances of rain in his face. He doesn’t mind, really. He never seems to mind anymore.

The afternoon was a lonely dip in a flow of feet, turmoil of lives and cameras. He tried to cool his mind. The stairs district was a nice diversion; people are always so baffled and excited when facing such strangeness and beauty. He loves the wonder on their faces as they behold the Escher structure and Masco stepless scale and the moving tininess of Fhloh II’s work of art. It had felt like having a companion again. Almost.

Those faces would not doubt his flying abilities or offer him poison in orangey drink form or comment on his face or be Ace simply.  His mind halts there, preventing the needle from niggling further at the memories. Never his abiding wander has been so pointless and selfish. There really is no point when he has lost his home, is it?

A herd of lost tourists scampers past him, heading for the nearby water-lift he refused to use. Pictures are automatically taken as the lift accelerates and at the end of the ride the patsy is handed a nice not-so-free shot of his grimacing face. He doesn’t want to take a look at his face. Even grimacing. Their pockets are full of trinkets and tiny replicas of monuments they probably spent more time picking in the souvenir shops than admiring with their eyes and hands. Stones are to be felt and caressed, their ruggedness and volatility arousing, their temperature and scent bending the atmosphere around. And the stories they tell used to make him cry. How he long for the steep walk leading to the base of the dome, for the granular garish rock there, the rough stone heated by the sun under his hand; it felt like being old and wise and he wished he had been at the time.

For a moment, this lonely square is the ugliest spot in the galaxy; unbearably pearl and neat; creamy pavement shimmering under the burnt Sienna sky; high origami-like buildings soaring from underneath the suspended boarding platform -the canopy of some luminescent pine-wood that would have outgrown the atmosphere, leaving the trunk sharp and naked. Around him synthetic benches and fibrous, almost fluffy, ornamental plants encased in stone structures are vainly fighting the majestic verticality and radiance of the stair bannisters. Their tops rise like ranging rods from the lower platforms and, between, translucent walls are enclosing the square. Tourists are not expected to fall to their death. Probably not, because there is an artificial lake below.

The platform, artificial snow globe with light in lieu of snow, is white and naked and the air has a sharpness scorching his eyes.

He knows it really is one of the most beautiful planets of this system.

It’s ugly nonetheless.

There’s a brisk ruffle coming from one of the stairs and on the place stumbles a vague figure. There would be no proper way to refer to it other than as sketch of a being. The limbs are barely standing out against the body, quite blurry body, and within a second he guesses he/she is wearing a Fantomas suit, excellent to avoid being recognised by scanners and detectors, not so much by people. The now obviously female human specimen has slipped out of the suit and is now revealing a practical outfit, military by Human standards, tank top and jogging suit completed with a utility belt. This is almost too tempting, the mystery of her as she stuffs the opposite of the camouflage battledress in a rucksack that came from nowhere. For a split second, he is intrigued. Even if he doesn’t do it anymore. To meet people means getting close and interacting and reading in every little changes and responses to him, like a shard of glass mirror, a part of him. A million pieces of himself staring back at him. Glaring back at him. Full of hatred and loneliness.

He gets angry at people. Constantly. And he leaves. Immediately.

Each “Hello” and “Thank you” are a shout back to his own inability -theirs- to talk them out of it. Each “Doctor who?” and “Where?” a look back at himself. Once he had a conversation with a Hindu wise man on top of the world. It was about snow and flowers, about the streams and the forests. This clarity and patience in the wording were growing the threads of the talk, nurturing it like water. But he dared to mention the war and the man hushed. He watches in silence now.

How many people, nearly adequate companion material, did he leave in the middle of the road because he cannot stand any gesture reminding him that he is still alive? He learned to unnotice in order to feign death. He only achieved stupor. His senses were still painfully functioning.

He quitted on people.

Unperturbed, the woman's movements are flowing and dragging, wide, setting in motion rather than opening the zips and pockets. He feels as if he could be crushed in arms like hers. And that would be a sweet death too. She is movement rather than matter; there is a mesmerising attuned rhythm and restraint to her flexing and bending to perform her task. Metronome-like. Her helmet is still in place, a form-fitting grey mask covering her whole head and dissuading the eye. Quite right she is.

He turns his back to her, takes a rather curved path to the nearest bench and falls onto it, wiggling into a seating position as he notices with annoyance the seat is unfortunately local-sized. In the shadow of the bench, furry winged creatures are fluffing and arguing over forsaken crumbs of ice pancake or the like of other sugared junk food the tourists consume on this planet. The little creatures hovered around his feet, risking a muzzle out -is it a beak? So much fur he cannot tell- before retreating under the haven of his long legs. On the periphery of his eyes -because staring at crystal crisp air is all he can manage- he senses the blur-clad woman lingering and sitting heavily on another bench, helmet removed and placed beside. Curly, light hair falling just above her shoulders, slightly flattened and damp at the temples and back of the head. She is still, head titled and he cannot see her face. The mane is as efficient as a mask.

His eyes did not linger on her though, those are just things he noticed in passing -he hates still noticing these things- as he is following the pattern the tops of the buildings behind are tracing and the shiny bannisters joyously poking all around. Would he still feel capable of weariness, he would call the place lazy; quite a disappointment to anyone supposed to wait in here. Time enjoys playing such little tricks on him. Little gasps of boredom without distraction whatsoever displayed before him to tempt his anger -and recklessness maybe- out of the cage he built to keep it from hurting anyone.

The study of the finely engraved pavement is interrupted first by a soft drumming on the leaves above him, then a sudden rush of water on the ground. The stone is instantly permeated, shading and browning as sugar -and in fact it does smell like caramel or candy-floss, the rain on the warmed stone. _Leisure planets_ , he sighs. He is grateful for his instinct to have kicked in and still on such petty matters worked its magic; he chose the only bench under a leafy tree.

There is a quick, rather splashy pounding on the ground, growing in intensity and beside him crashes the blurry woman of before, quite drizzled and obviously rumpled. Her chin rests on her chest and arms are wrapped around her. He is trying his very best not to concentrate on her as fleeing is not an option at the moment. She huffs in discomfort and attempts to pull on her top to detach it from her body. The process seems dreadfully unpleasant and she lets out a small disgruntled snore from the back of her throat, like a half sucked-in snarl. Droplets are following the twists and turns of her damp hair before falling down on her trousers and blooming in small irregular dark circles.

“Would you mind?” Her voice, hoarse and sugared, hisses.

His head shoots up, straightening his upper body and nearly crashing the back of the bench; he was practically nose in her lap, face in the crude material of her trousers. He has half a mind to apologise; one woman whom he would never meet again in all fairness could sustain the temporary annoyance -assault rather- of his carelessness. The strength to do so failed him a long time ago and he intends to morph into a figment of history people pass every day without noticing. Like a column. And if by chance, a person happens to be at the receiving end of the slow deterioration of its top, why would he apologise? See. It would only anger him. And those mindless people would panic.

“Right. But it is not in the habit of ruins to stare at people and talk nonsense.”

She squirts her eyes, half assured, half annoyed. “At least not in this system.”

He feels the snarl wringing his upper-lip; of course, he would say that out-loud. For so long, his thoughts, accustomed to the silence of the TARDIS and the anonymity of the trips, have found a straight path to his mouth. He thinks out-loud.

“I do apologise.” He sneers back at her. And the words seem like a threat and a command all at once. He grips the edge of the bench in defense. Against his words.

This is why he never interacts with sentient creatures anymore. Or so few. Words are tiny war machines he needs to manoeuvre either out of the battlefield or right under the fire. Even to retreat, he needs to shoot, while stumbling backwards; and it’s such a mess of debris he has to push out of the way, blindsided.

Exhausting process, people.

His knuckles are white against the grey simile-wood, the whole structure quivers in response.

Yet he isn’t trembling, the woman is. She has obviously decided she would ignore his apology because she is now sitting as close as she can, studying him intently. Shaking with cold and, he realises, weariness. He really should stop noticing those details, lives and blinks, but it is there. Good old physical exhaustion; whatever she used the afternoon for, it burnt her out, and her body is a map of bulging muscles and large bruises, reddened skin and twitching nerves.

“You look knackered. Really awful.” He matter-of-factly offers. The ease of the words out of his mouth startles him. Pettiness might work on him.

She lifts her eyebrows, gingerly, shifting on the bench and briefly cringing as the cold air passes under her thighs. Unconsciously, she retreats from him.

“Frankly soaked too. Wanted to shower with candy-floss?” It seems he has turned sarcastic too. He did not expect that.

She mutters under her breath “fell on the bossy one” but corrects a bit louder her nonsensical sentence in “fell asleep on the bench” as if trying to make up for a faux-pas. She shoots him a nasty look, full of an impatience his previous display of rudeness could not entirely explain. But he is as impatient as her, probably the only thing left in him, the desire to pass time rather than live and every person getting him to do otherwise deserves his contempt. And excited, a bit, to discover what this incarnation holds for him in terms of wit.

“Stupid of you not to consider it would rain. Bloody speakers have been parroting the whole afternoon. You should have expected something like that. Big sponge now are you”, he spells out, cheeky. He enjoys annoying her. She appears the unpredictable kind.

“Well, a lot of things didn’t go as planned this afternoon.” A guarded expression clings to her features, along with the overall weariness and wetness.

“You know, orange clouds and pressure and humidity…”He small talks along but she wrinkles her nose and frowns. He keeps noticing stupid things and naively asking.

“What?”

“Are you a frog now?” The tone is strangely yielding and he doesn’t know to what she has just gave in.

Her legs have gone up to her chest, enclosed by her arms in an attempt to keep warm. The flesh of her fingers, clenched in a fist against her side, has turned purplish and at the hem of her socks, thick practical wooly ones, the lower calf is white and bloodless.

“Could you please stop doing that?” A higher than expected shrill interrupts his study. His nose is on her shoes this time. “Or are you the one nodding off on me.” She looks properly annoyed now, pulling her dampened trousers on her ankles.

“Do I look like a pillow?” Alarmed and not even joking.

Strangely, he considers her question with genuine seriousness before answering. She does look snug and taut and very soft. A thwack on his shoulder snaps him out of his pondering and she is glaring.

“Focus, stop drifting out, in, out.” Her head lazily sways. “You _babble_. This is just wrong.”

“So. You do look like a pillow”, he explains as to a distracted child. “But a very wet one. I would not sleep on you.”

A spasm of surprise passes her eyes, and a tense tightening of the calf, before laughter escapes her mouth, the lips suddenly relaxed and strangely fuller. But the outburst is short-lived and quickly morphs into a repressed shudder and she yawns, tears forming in her eyes.

He does not understand how but his jacket has found a way to slip out of his arms, into his hands, down to her…

She slaps his wrist and he drops the jacket between them.

“Don’t you dare!” The irritation in her voice is slight, almost inviting, maybe unconvinced, a tad exhausted. Not what he expects from a bundle of assurance and boldness. What she appears to be. And smug. And why-don’t-you-take-my-jacket exasperating. Funny. This feels like interaction. Not an absolute success since she slapped his hand and does not seem to care a jot about the fact he has no idea who she is and still treats her as if they are old acquaintances.

Baby steps.

He smiles. She eyes his lightening up with suspicion, lifting her hands to her knees. He waits for her to take the jacket, she obviously waits for him to pick the jacket so that she can strike him again. His eyes fall on it. Silly hump of clothing, dreading the rain as much as he is. Fine. No cabin in sight.

Drops are beginning to find a way through the leaves and plopping one by one on his head and left knee. They are both sulking. And moments pass them by.

Gradually her frame begins wobbling, slips and hovers, and within a second he bends sideways to catch her head on his shoulder; he secures her legs on the bench near him, a palm to her knee to stop her from toppling over-board and gently wraps her in the jacket, satisfied. That is a battle he quite enjoyed winning.

“See, you’re the one in need of a pillow.”

She moans in agreement.

“I just want a proper bed.”

He dismisses the implications of the sentence, his promotion from pillow to proper bed. Or is it a demotion?

“You don’t have a proper bed?” he asks instead.

“Not an option at the moment.” She’s practically climbing his sides, knuckles hooking to his sweater while the curls, still damp, spread on his shoulders and trace uncluttered arcs there. But eyes closed and confident. In him.

“I see. Broke?”

“Not even. No breaking out this week.”

He stiffens, not looking at her.

“From where?”

“Somewhere I can’t have a nice bed.” No trace of panic in her voice or even worry. Which could imply wherever she cannot break out from is not what he first supposed she had escaped from.

“But you’re out, now.”

She wiggles her wrist adorned with an electronic strap above his nose in way of explanation before boldly slipping it under his arm. The tip of her nose is grazing him with such absolute confidence. Her nostrils are palpitating. She seems to smell him, almost professional in her search, catching the scents and dissecting. Whatever she found here, on the fabric of his shirt and the creases of his jacket, comforts her; she releases a contented sigh and snuggles close. The proximity has flown far beyond any limit he set. She smells like humidity and he wants to take her hand. He didn’t know he still had it in him, to touch and hold hands. It’s reassuring.

She’s still too human and bloody oblivious of what the Universe is.

Still. At last. Maybe. Tolerable.

“I’m out. But just _working_ out. And I can’t break out because otherwise…” She trails off.

“What?”

“Never mind. You’re too young. Oh. Actually never mind that either.” She straightens and levels her head to his face, as if about to, in fact, gobble him or something. Lost in concentration, she worries her bottom lip and squints. “Too bloody young.”

That’s new. That’s bold. That might even be true. And not the first time he would have regenerated into an infant. She scales down his frame and settles back, head on his shoulder, takes a quick look at the device on her wrist and he can see a countdown.

“You should go,” she whispers.

“No. I’m waiting for a bus.”

She pouts and he corrects.

“Well, not a bus, a cabin.”

“Just go.”

“Am not going anywhere. It is my bench.”

“You don’t understand. I am not supposed to remember any of it in…” she gestures at her watch, “about ten minutes. I’ll lose memory of the day. I will just faint. And they are going to pick me up. I won’t get on that bus. It’s the only way they could think of letting me handle such hush-hush top secret things.”

“Was it really top secret?” The whole thing is turning out to be a bit too silly for his taste. _Leisure planet,_ secret missions now.

Her smile is bold and again plum, as if her lips were blossoming while smiling, swelling out of their lines. Not quite hers, even.

“Not _that_ top secret.”

“Clearly not. You removed your suit and helmet; anybody could walk in and see you here, Miss Secrets. I did.” He offers a silly, proud beam and she tugs at his sweater.

“I removed it because apparently it makes the subject freak out to wake up in. And this is not my face, _perception filter._ You should know.” The corners of her eyes fold and swallow a smirk.

He stares and a twinge of sadness like disappointment claws at his chest. Pity, she was rather beautiful, probably. With her green eyes and curly hair; he finds the chin a bit too pointy for the curve of her jaws and the nose too small, but there was no denying that by intergalactic standards, she was pleasing to look at.

“I still don’t see why I should leave you. Imagine those people do not come before you wake up. And you are alone. With no idea of what happened.” Professor-like in his argument, he hesitates to wave a hand or two for good effect.

“That would hardly be the first time”, she remarks, oddly deflated.

Of course, if that’s a common practice in the army now…

“I’m not leaving you alone. Silly young lady.” He looks down at her. “There are tourists out there. Dangerous creatures. Tourists.” He accentuates the last word. A teensy part of him wants to make her laugh, even when he knows it probably doesn’t matter and he won’t see her again. She won’t remember any of it.

She snorts.

That’s a start.

The jacket is completely enveloping her, only allowing her legs and right hand to sneak out and seek him. Apparently, it has stopped raining and the speakers are apologising for the inconvenience.

“Saying sorry for the weather?” he hears her mumble against his side. “Leisure planet.” And the contempt she puts in the exclamation is delightful. He is growing rather fond of this. Never thought he would. Again. Taking care of somebody, actually not being alone. Even if she, in all appearances, is not the kind of woman to be taken care of. A Romana or a Nyssa or an Ace. Romanas are annoying. But he has grown fond of them. Before. He just has to let it happen.

They are still and enjoying it. The square is glistening a last time before the star disappears behind the horizon. And the winged creatures fluff about in puddles.

Her wrist strap suddenly whirs and she looks almost disappointed –and he can see only the top of her head; the silly things he noticed. She seems about to tell something, hesitates, simply glances up. For a moment he thinks what he is witnessing there is envy. Memories he will have of an afternoon on a platform splashed with light, memories she won’t have, if he is to believe her. It is pity he finds instead. A whistle escapes the device and she briefly tenses before her whole body goes limp as she drifts out of consciousness.

He wishes he had not noticed this part, he wishes she just fell asleep on his shoulder, naturally, wrapped up in his jacket.

The smell of candy-floss has been replaced by warm wet ground in the air. He watches out. Of himself, of the globe of light they are floating on, of the hatred bastion he erected. It feels bearable.

Within two minutes, a group of armed members of the Church, according to their uniform, materialises in the middle of the square. A tall sandy man, obviously the leader, strides in their direction, a frown of proud dissatisfaction hardening his features.

“Did she talk to you?” he inquires, without introduction.

The Doctor smirks and answers in Aeolian. The tall man backs away, startled, but with a movement of the hand indicates the bag and helmet under the bench. Two soldiers dive to pick them up as a third prepares to grab the unconscious woman at the Doctor’s side. The leader stops him. He steps forward, opens his arms, unsure of how to take hold of her. He is slow and careful in his removal of the heap of curls across her face and of the jacket; unsure, it doesn’t fit him. Very hard not to notice the state of exhaustion she is in. The Doctor observes the soldier’s contrite tries before seizing himself the woman, slipping his arms under her knees and balancing her back. Boldly he hands her to the sandy holy man, who does a very good job of appearing as relieved as he is offended.

The Doctor picks up his jacket, slips in the sleeves, and with a swift tug at the lapels prepares to shoot the man an irritated look. The party is already gathering at the centre of the square and the woman is carried away. Her shoes only, practical, military, grey and sun-catching hair are dangling on each side of the retreating soldier. They scramble and silent, like ants in their own language, exchange briefly a few words.

They are also scrutinising. He turns his back to them and makes for the landing stage, not willing to see them -and her- fade out of existence. Below, the buildings are lighting up. It’s almost dark. He doesn’t hear them dematerialising.

As the cabin, at last, hovers down to the platform, he casts a look over his shoulder to find the now completely grey square and the lonely bench under the tree. The fluffy creatures are cuddling or eating each other. With a breath, he steps into the vehicle.

It’s a nice memory. He thinks.

Twenty hours from the lonely bench under the tree, he finds himself on a beach of the Krakatoa archipelago. All around him is death and he has a nagging suspicion he miscalculated something somewhere. There is blood on his left temple. He is not sure how he got there. Last thing he remembers is stepping out of the TARDIS for a short visit to Abydos II and its renown anti-grav waterfall district. The stairs district would be a nice alternative though.


End file.
